LETTERS READ: The Letters of Josephine Louise Newcomb

LETTERS READ

Recorded Saturday, April 13 2024 in front of a live audience at Catapult in New Orleans.

Featured Readers:
Emcee Chris Kamenstein, Director Nancy Sharon Collins, Shadow Angelina Starkey, and Robert Valley.

H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College was established by Josephine Louise Monnier Newcomb (“Jo”) as she was called, 1816 to 1901) as a memorial to her daughter Sophie who died at the age of 15. At a time when women were discouraged from education, an institution devoted to higher learning for women was a revolutionary idea.

Ladies of Mrs. Newcomb’s privileged class were instead taught to have “accomplishments”. Such as parlor entertainments like piano playing and polite conversation. For the lower classes—who had to hire themselves out as domestic help to survive—cooking, cleaning, sewing, nursing, and care giving for other people’s families were their lot. For them, education, such as it were, was learned scrubbing pots on the job.

This program heavily relies on Susan Tucker and Beth Willinger, their scholarship, and superb, online, project, The Letters of Josephine Louise Newcomb.

Additional thanks go to writer/researcher Jarret Lofstead and audio producer Steve Gilliland.